[Norm K]

As a kid I worked as a pump jockey for a middle-aged guy who'd moved to the Portland area from Tennessee and opened his dream business.


In the early seventies service stations were still service stations, so we washed windshields and checked oil levels and tire pressures. We sold oil for $.99 a quart, quite a markup and profit opportunity for the owner, Marvin Windrow. Now, Mr. Windrow was a really good mechanic but was a bit lacking in other areas. Once, having sold a woman four quarts of oil for her Caddy, I sprinted to the office and reported my big sale to him. Grabbing a pad and pencil, Mr. Windrow went to work. When I told him it was $3.96 he looked at me in disbelief and bent back over his pad. When he'd finally finished he looked at me again and exclaimed (very loudly, as he was quite hard of hearing, and in his very thick hills of Tennessee accent) "Nines!!! How do you do that with all those nines!!!"

Poor guy, I never told him, simply continued to have him believe I was some sort of kid genius.